Sometimes Not Even The Sunshine Helps

This experience of travelling S.America is so different to my time in Thailand for several reasons. I guess the most significant is that in Thailand, because I was working, I was settled somewhere. I was also there with one of my best friends and there were several other teachers who became good friends. I had a chance to get to know and become close with some of the local Thai people because I wasn't moving on every few days. I had a support network. I was never too far from people who cared about me and who I could have a drink and share a laugh with.

Now that I'm travelling, and especially because I'm doing it alone, I feel disjointed. In one way it's liberating and in another it's isolating. I've had company but not with real friends, people who really know me. Normally I don't mind sitting in a bar on my own but now, sometimes, I feel like a poor, sad loser with no friends.

Another reason why this time is different is because when I went to Thailand I had just come out of a long, arduous relationship that was bad for my health both physically and emotionally. Thailand was my retreat from that. But this time I have left the person that I love for, what's starting to feel like, an eternity. While I admire us both, me for not letting anything get in the way of living my dream, and my man for giving me the freedom and trust to do what I want to do, it's hard being away from him for so long. It's only been a month and a half but the days are so long now that I'm not working. And even though we live in an age of modern technology I can't help but feel very far away. Mobile phones have not been working in my favour and Skype, though brilliant in theory, has proved to be very frustrating. Technology and I have never really had a harmonious relationship.

Another difference is the fact that I'm nothing more than a tourist, doing pretty much the same thing as every other tourist. Yes, it's an experience that's unique to me but in Thailand I was really immersed in the culture. I was part of their community and treated with respect and admiration. Over here I'm just another white face. Yes, I am welcomed but no, I'm not repsected or that well thought of. I know that in regards to this I should just get over myself but it is purely a symptom of having spent a bit too much time on my own recently, with too much time to think. I always said that the thing I was most worried about was being lonely and I was reassured by many that that wouldn't be the case. Now that it is I can't help but wonder what I'm doing wrong. It's not that I'm turning down opportunites of company or that potential company is shunning me, I just seem to have been moving in the wrong circles over the past week. I haven't seen anyone I could hang out with or, if I have, it's clear that they are part of their own wee niche that doesn't seem very welcoming.

I also know that this is probably a temporary thing and I'm sure that I will fall in with some people eventually but, until then, the days will seem long and dull living in my own head. Surely a dog for companionship would make all the doubt and lonliness disappear?